Leapfrog Representation and Extremism: A Study of American Voters and Their Members in Congress

We consider the relationship between the preferences of American voters and the preferences of the U.S. legislators who represent them. Using an Internet-based, national opinion survey in conjunction with legislator voting records from the 109th and 110th Congresses, we show that members of Congress are more extreme than their constituents, i.e., that there is a lack of congruence between American voters and members of Congress. We also show that when a congressional legislator is replaced by a new member of the opposite party, one relative extremist is replaced by an opposing extremist. We call this leapfrog representation, a form of representation that leaves moderates with a dearth of representation in Congress. We see evidence of leapfrog representation in states and House districts and in the aggregate as well: the median member of the 109th House was too conservative compared to the median American voter, yet the median of the 110th House was too liberal. Thus, the median American voter was leapfrogged when the 109th House transitioned to the 110th. Although turnover between the 109th and 110th Senates occurred at approximately the same rate as between the 109th and 110th Houses, the Senate appears to be a more moderate institution whose median member does not move as abruptly as that of the House.

[1]  Kenneth W. Shotts,et al.  Leadership and Pandering: A Theory of Executive Policymaking , 2001 .

[2]  James A. Stimson.  Belief Systems: Constraint, Complexity, and the 1972 Election , 1975 .

[3]  K. T. Poole,et al.  Does Gerrymandering Cause Polarization , 2009 .

[4]  H. Rosenthal,et al.  A Theory of Divided Government , 1996 .

[5]  Robert Y. Shapiro,et al.  Politicians Don't Pander: Political Manipulation and the Loss of Democratic Responsiveness , 2000 .

[6]  Nolan McCarty,et al.  The Ideological Mapping of American Legislatures , 2010, American Political Science Review.

[7]  Christopher Wlezien.  The Public as Thermostat: Dynamics of Preferences for Spending , 1995 .

[8]  Barry C. Burden.  A technique for estimating candidate and voter locations , 2004 .

[9]  Michael A. Bailey.  Comparable Preference Estimates across Time and Institutions for the Court, Congress, and Presidency , 2007 .

[10]  Joshua D. Clinton.  Representation in Congress: Constituents and Roll Calls in the 106th House , 2006 .

[11]  Jasjeet S. Sekhon,et al.  Black Candidates and Black Voters: Assessing the Impact of Candidate Race on Uncounted Vote Rates , 2005 .

[12]  Keith T. Poole,et al.  Changing minds? Not in Congress! , 2007 .

[13]  A. Hintze,et al.  Measuring Representation , 2010 .

[14]  K. T. Poole,et al.  Congress: A Political-Economic History of Roll Call Voting , 1997 .

[15]  S. Jessee,et al.  Spatial Voting in the 2004 Presidential Election , 2009, American Political Science Review.

[16]  Robert S. Erikson,et al.  Balancing, Generic Polls and Midterm Congressional Elections , 2010 .

[17]  G. Jacobson,et al.  A Divider, Not a Uniter: George W. Bush and the American People, The 2006 Election and Beyond , 2006 .

[18]  J. Whelpley.  American Public Opinion , 2007 .

[19]  Alexander Keyssar,et al.  The Right to Vote: The Contested History of Democracy in the United States , 2000 .

[20]  Michael C. Herron,et al.  Estimating the Effect of Redistricting on Minority Substantive Representation , 2007 .

[21]  Alan D. Monroe.  Public Opinion and Public Policy, 1980-1993 , 1998 .

[22]  Simon Jackman,et al.  Multidimensional Analysis of Roll Call Data via Bayesian Simulation: Identification, Estimation, Inference, and Model Checking , 2001, Political Analysis.

[23]  Stephen Ansolabehere,et al.  Candidate Positioning in U.S. House Elections , 2001 .

[24]  T. Sulkin.  Issue Politics in Congress , 2005 .

[25]  Warren E. Miller,et al.  Constituency Influence in Congress , 1963, American Political Science Review.

[26]  A. Downs.  An Economic Theory of Democracy , 1957 .

[27]  A. Abramowitz,et al.  The Disappearing Center: Engaged Citizens, Polarization, and American Democracy , 2010 .

[28]  Noah Kaplan,et al.  Practical Issues in Implementing and Understanding Bayesian Ideal Point Estimation , 2005, Political Analysis.

[29]  W. Buchanan,et al.  The legislative system : explorations in legislative behavior , 1964 .

[30]  Hermann Schmitt,et al.  Dynamic Representation , 1995, American Political Science Review.

[31]  John Londregan,et al.  Estimating Legislators' Preferred Points , 1999, Political Analysis.

[32]  T. Romer,et al.  Ideology, "Shirking", and Representation , 1993 .

[33]  M. Kent Jennings,et al.  IDEOLOGICAL THINKING AMONG MASS PUBLICS AND POLITICAL ELITES , 1992 .

[34]  James J. Heckman,et al.  Linear Probability Models of the Demand for Attributes with an Empirical Application to Estimating the Preferences of Legislators , 1996 .

[35]  Michiel S. de Vries,et al.  The Macro Polity , 2003 .

[36]  Simon Jackman,et al.  Democracy as a Latent Variable , 2008 .

[37]  Robert S. Erikson,et al.  Constituency Opinion and Congressional Behavior: A Reexamination of the Miller-Stokes Representation Data , 1978 .

[38]  James A. Stimson.  Tides of consent : how public opinion shapes American politics , 2004 .

[39]  Christopher H. Achen.  Measuring Representation: Perils of the Correlation Coefficient , 1977 .

[40]  Melvin J. Hinich,et al.  Advances in the Spatial Theory of Voting , 1993 .

[41]  Elisabeth R. Gerber,et al.  Beyond the Median: Voter Preferences, District Heterogeneity, and Political Representation , 2004, Journal of Political Economy.

[42]  D. Wittman.  Advances in the Spatial Theory of Voting: Spatial Strategies When Candidates Have Policy Preferences , 1990 .

[43]  James M. Enelow,et al.  The Spatial Theory of Voting: An Introduction , 1984 .

[44]  Steven D. Levitt,et al.  Comparing Interest Group Scores across Time and Chambers: Adjusted ADA Scores for the U.S. Congress , 1999, American Political Science Review.

[45]  J. Heckman,et al.  Linear Probability Models of the Demand for Attributes with an Empirical Application to Estimating the Preferences of Legislators , 1996 .

[46]  Simon Jackman,et al.  Measuring District-Level Partisanship with Implications for the Analysis of U.S. Elections* , 2008, Journal of Politics.

[47]  J. Snyder.  Artificial Extremism in Interest Group Ratings , 1992 .

[48]  Kyle L. Saunders,et al.  Ideological Realignment and Active Partisans in the American Electorate , 2004 .

[49]  Jamie L. Carson,et al.  Shirking in the Contemporary Congress: A Reappraisal , 2004, Political Analysis.

[50]  Michael Tomz,et al.  How Does Voting Equipment Affect the Racial Gap in Voided Ballots , 2003 .

[51]  R. Calvert.  Robustness of the Multidimensional Voting Model: Candidate Motivations, Uncertainty, and Convergence* , 1985 .

[52]  Joshua D. Clinton,et al.  The Statistical Analysis of Roll Call Data , 2004, American Political Science Review.

[53]  G. Thompson,et al.  The Theory of Committees and Elections. , 1959 .

[54]  Andrew D. Martin,et al.  Assessing Preference Change on the US Supreme Court , 2007 .

[55]  C. Lawrence.  Of Shirking, Outliers, and Statistical Artifacts , 2007 .

[56]  Kyle L. Saunders,et al.  Is Polarization a Myth? , 2008, The Journal of Politics.

[57]  Christopher Wlezien.  Dynamics of Representation: The Case of US Spending on Defence , 1996, British Journal of Political Science.

[58]  Morris P. Fiorina,et al.  Representatives, roll calls, and constituencies , 1974 .

[59]  David P. Baron,et al.  Electoral Competition with Informed and Uninformed Voters , 1994, American Political Science Review.

[60]  Richard Elling.  Ideological Change in the U. S. Senate: Time and Electoral Responsiveness , 1982 .

[61]  Andrew D. Martin,et al.  Dynamic Ideal Point Estimation via Markov Chain Monte Carlo for the U.S. Supreme Court, 1953–1999 , 2002, Political Analysis.

[62]  Melvin J. Hinich,et al.  Advances in the spatial theory of voting , 1990 .

[63]  W. Buchanan,et al.  The Legislative System: Explorations in Legislative Behavior. , 1963 .